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During his hurling match, Joey tries to concentrate, but his thoughts about how Paul treated Aoife when she arrived at the game distract him. He always treats her poorly and talks down to her, and Joey is bothered that Aoife lets him do it.

At halftime, Joey leaves the locker room. Aoife, who is sitting in the team’s dugout, yells at him and compliments his play. Joey hears Paul yelling at her as he goes back onto the field.

Joey tries to play but gets distracted when he sees Paul grab Aoife and pull her off the dugout. Joey, furious, storms off the pitch and ignores his coaches yelling at him. He punches Paul in the face. Paul angrily tells him that Aoife is not his girlfriend and that Joey needs to go “back to the tramp whose legs [he] came out of” (105). Aoife tries to stop Joey, but fury overwhelms him.

On Monday morning, Aoife’s best friend, Casey, asks her about the fight. Casey says that it is Aoife’s fault for trying so hard with Joey while also dating Paul. She tells Aoife that she needs to end it with one of them, but Aoife admits that she can’t get Joey out of her mind.

Joey goes to school on Monday, and his friend, Podge Kelly, asks him about his bruises. He thinks back to his Friday night when his father kicked him repeatedly with steel boots, but he brushes Podge off. Podge continues to try to question him, but Joey angrily tells him not to worry about it.

Joey’s phone goes off. Shane texts him, asking him to use drugs during lunch. Joey agrees and then asks if Shane has anything stronger than marijuana. He thinks of how marijuana used to be enough, but as “the beatings from [his] father continued to intensify,” so did his “desperate need to escape” (111).

At her father’s garage, Aoife pulls Joey out from under the car he is working on. He compliments her yellow thong, and she jokes about looking better when it’s off. To her surprise, Joey makes a joke about her sitting on his lap so he can find out. She tells him that he needs to go back to “being an asshole,” but Joey insists that he has “decided to change tactics” and flirt harder to see if it will get her to leave him alone (118).

Joey takes his little brothers out trick-or-treating and then drops them off at home so he can go to a party with his friends. He stops to talk to his mom, who is sitting at the kitchen table. She recently kicked her husband out of the house after another fight, but Joey knows Teddy will be back. The baby is due in three weeks. He makes sure his mom will be okay if she goes out, and she insists that she will be.

At the party, Aoife has been drinking alcohol. She dances with her friend, Casey, dressed as an angel. Paul repeatedly hounds her about her outfit, but Aoife ignores him and dances with Alec and Podge. Paul grabs her arm and tries to get her off the dance floor, telling her she looks like a “slut” and then a “whore.” Enraged, Aoife breaks up with Paul and then angrily leaves the party.

In the parking lot, Joey approaches Aoife, who is leaning on a car and trying to sober up. He tells her that she should be done with Paul for how he treats her. Aoife teases Joey about how he cares for her. The two get close to each other, on the verge of kissing, but Joey pulls away. He tells her that he can’t be with her because of her father and because she can “do better than” both him and Paul (134). Despite Aoife’s protests, Joey gets into Shane’s car and leaves.

After snorting oxycodone with Shane, Joey returns to the party. He is enraged to see that Aoife is back with Paul, but he allows himself to forget about it while he’s on drugs. In the parking lot, he is barely conscious when he hears his friends yelling about his mom. He opens his eyes and realizes that his mom is there. She tells him that she needs to go to the hospital and wants Joey to watch the kids, but she angrily scolds Joey for using drugs.

Aoife and Paul argue in the parking lot. She realizes that they have just started to “mutually tolerate each other” and that their relationship will never work (140). She tries to explain this to Paul, but he keeps insisting that they can’t break up. He tries to say that she will never be with Joey, while Aoife tells him that her choice has nothing to do with Joey.

Joey goes with his mother to the hospital as she delivers the baby. He tries not to be sick from the drugs in his system, as his mother repeatedly asks him to stay with her because she is “all alone” and needs him. The baby is born, and as the nurse cuts the umbilical cord, Joey wonders if he’ll ever be able to sever the “cord” that still connects him to his mother.

Aoife tries to stay broken up with Paul, but he promises to change and begs her to take him back. She agrees but now sees that he is slowly returning to the way he was.

In class, Aoife tries to ask Joey if he has heard anything about Paul cheating on her, but Joey insists that it’s none of his business. Eventually, he confirms that he knows Paul was texting Danielle, but that’s all he will reveal. Aoife angrily texts Paul, who confirms it’s true and then begs Aoife to talk with him about it. On the verge of tears, Aoife scolds Joey for not telling her sooner and then leaves.

After class, Joey meets her in the hall. He gives her back her bag that she left in the classroom. He then apologizes for not telling her about Paul sooner, and she apologizes in return.

Joey shows up to school hours late, exhausted. Aoife asks him if he’s on drugs, but Joey insists he is just tired. He tells her that his new brother, Sean, is getting a tooth and was crying all night. Aoife is shocked that he has a new brother that she didn’t know about. She comments on how “thin” the walls must be if the crying kept him up, but Joey just “look[s] at [her] for a long time before shaking his head” (156). She tries to get him to explain what’s wrong, but he won’t, so she offers him chocolate to help.

Joey smokes outside the school with his friends. Sam and her boyfriend, Jason, ask him about Danielle, but Joey insists he’s never had sex with her. As they continue to tease him about it, he walks away.

Joey passes Aoife and Paul together but keeps walking, angry that they are together again. Aoife runs away from Paul and up to Joey, confronting him about why he ignored her. He insists that he isn’t going to “enable [her] bad behavior” (158)—using the same words she used before about his drug use. However, Aoife tells him that he is being just as stupid for hooking up with random girls. She forces Joey to hug her and then whispers that she is just “doing what [she has] to do to move past this” (159), referring to her feelings for him, which is the same thing he is doing. Joey hugs her back and admits that he knows.

In home economics class, Joey and Aoife cook together. Joey messes around, flinging chili across the room at his friends. The teacher makes him clean it up, as Aoife thinks of how he is easily the best student in their class. Joey stops and cleans some off Danielle’s leg, commenting on how “nice” her legs are. Aoife feels jealous, thinking how Joey usually comments on her legs.

When Joey returns to their table, he can’t figure out why Aoife is so upset. He jokingly flings water at her, and she decides that she needs to retaliate, dumping a bottle of soap over her head. Joey pulls Aoife off her stool and carries her over to the sink, pouring water over her. Aoife and Joey laugh along with the rest of the class.

Aoife and Joey are sent to detention. Aoife is visibly angry, and Joey tries to figure out what he did wrong. When the teacher leaves, Joey repeatedly asks her. She tells him that she is upset he told Danielle she has “nice legs”—a compliment he normally gives to Aoife. He demands to know how she can be mad about Danielle when she has a boyfriend, but Aoife angrily leaves the room.

Aoife sobs on the ground against her car. Paul sits down next to her and asks what’s wrong. Aoife initially dismisses him and then admits that she likes Joey. Paul asks if they’ve slept together, and Aoife insists that she hasn’t and never will. Paul asks if Aoife likes Joey more than him, and Aoife tries to explain that her feelings for both are just “different.” Paul then confesses that the night of the Halloween party, he slept with a girl from Tommen named Bella Wilkinson. Aoife is devastated that he lost his virginity to her, realizing that there is no way for their relationship to work despite how apologetic Paul seems.

At home, Aoife goes to her room, undresses, and then gets a towel. When she gets into the bathroom, she finds Joey using cocaine. She yells at him, and he apologizes, telling her that he came to fix the shower and didn’t expect Aoife to be there.

Joey tries to leave, assuming that he will be fired, but Aoife stops him and forces him into her room. She locks the door and tells him that he is going to stay there until he is no longer high. Joey tries to argue but then relents, hugging Aoife. He apologizes for what he said to Danielle and then admits that he misses being her friend.

Once Joey calms down, he tells Aoife that something is wrong. She notices that he has an erection, and Joey panics, insisting that he can’t get it to go away.

Joey thinks back over the past few months. Ever since Sean came home, his mother has refused to care for him, leaving Joey and Shannon to do it all. After just a few weeks with the new baby, his dad went back to drinking and fighting with his mom.

Joey texts Shane, who admits that he accidentally gave him the wrong bag; this one was cocaine mixed with erectile dysfunction medication. Joey and Aoife laugh about it, and then he asks to use her shower.

Aoife waits downstairs for an hour until Joey comes down. He thanks her for letting him use her shower and then again apologizes for what he said to Danielle and for their fight after. She agrees that she was hurt but still wants to be his friend.